Before the fall season kicks in and the cold breeze picks up I start preparing a jar of tea that I found from this website two years ago: simplegreensmoothies.com

Even in the middle of winter, it’s always good to warm up and try to maintain some immunity. It’s the most natural tea to help me fight off any possibilities of a cold or flu. It also soothes my throat and prevents me from coughing when I’m desperately trying to get a good night’s sleep.

When I first tried this out, I followed every single step as close as possible. I’ve attached the same instructions below from Simple Green Smoothies’ website but all the pictures were taken with my Iphone 6s.

Ingredients

Directions

2. Place the lemon and ginger slices in the mason jar, alternating layers of each.

3. Slowly pour honey over the lemon and ginger. Allow the honey to sink down and around the lemon and ginger slices. Fill jar to the top with honey and seal tightly.

4. Store in the refrigerator. Over time, the mixture will start to turn into a loose jelly.

5. When you are in need of some soothing tea, scoop 2-3 tablespoons into a mug full of hot water – be sure to scoop whole pieces of ginger and lemon. Allow to steep for 3-4 minutes and sip away.

There is really not much to this recipe except I would recommend finding a mason jar that is a little bigger so it can hold as much of the ingredients as possible. When I bought a larger jar, I just started to add more ginger and lemon slices so that every cup has more flavour.

Probably the only adjustments I have made is picking out the seeds of the lemon, then adding more honey and ginger to the mix.

Honestly my family absolutely loves this recipe. Every time we feel like a cold is coming on or we just want something to warm us up, this has become our go-to tea in our home. When you get the chance, check out some of their other recipes they share for some of their smoothie drinks.

I’m always looking for an easy recipe to make. When I came across this Slow Cooker Chili Mac recipe from “koolaidmoms” (whatsfordinnermoms.com to everyone else), I immediately thought to myself that it would be a mistake for me not to give this a go. After all, I have been searching for slow cooker meals because they are so much easier to make and I don’t have to stand in front of the oven cooking up something that takes up almost 20-30 minutes of my time.

This recipe claims that the difficult level was easy. Let me tell you that this recipe should be re-printed as SUPER EASY! I have tried this recipe twice: First time I sort of fumbled around the kitchen a little and did my absolute best to follow the recipe as-is so my prep time went from 10 minutes to 20 minutes (give or take) and I was chatting up a storm with my wife. The second time, my prep time was reduced down to about 12 minutes because I tweaked the recipe a little to my own liking and I was alone to work on this recipe myself.

The actual recipe can be found on their website where you can find a whole bunch of other easy-to-make recipes: Slow Cooker Chili Mac Recipe

For clarity, Koolaidmoms has not paid me to write this review. I have voluntarily wrote this review because I was so excited to share how delicious and easy this recipe was to make.

MY VERSION

I didn’t tweak the recipe too much from the original but it took a little time for me to think how I wanted this to taste the way I wanted it to. Also my slow cooker is only a 4 quart so if I added too much then it would have overflowed. All I did differently was:

1 lb. of lean ground beef.

I made sure 1 onion was the biggest onion I could buy.

I used 1 (28oz) can of diced tomatoes, not sauce. I like the consistency and flavour of tomatoes instead.

I used half a can (28oz) of tomatoes. They didn’t sell a 16oz can.

I only used 1 yellow pepper. Has a sweeter taste.

Next time I will use the corn. I forgot to buy it both times!

Definitely used sour cream and cheddar cheese.

Crackers! It’s great with crackers!

So this is what it looked like when everything was thrown into the slow cooker. Almost filled to the rim.

It might have looked like a soupy mess but the consistency is exactly how it should be. When the elbow pasta was added, some of the liquid ends up disappearing.

After adding the sour cream and cheese, this is the result:

Wifey only had cheese Ritz crackers in the pantry but it was really good!

So this recipe is an A+ in my books and something that I know I can eat every so often. I even ate this when it was very humid and hot outside so I can honestly say that this is a recipe that is not just for a cold, chilly night. It is a hearty dish that tasted twice as good when we had it for leftovers the next day.

If any of you can get out to visit The CNE (Canadian National Exhibition) in Toronto, I would highly recommend it! I managed to upload a few quick videos on my SpicyChopsticks YouTube channel for all of you to enjoy.

Just a note: All videos were taken with my Iphone so I apologize if my hands were not steady enough or for the autofocus.